Media Conference Statement by Lim Kit Siang in Ipoh on Sunday, 11^th April 2010 at 11 am: 

Call on Nazri to make ministerial statement in Parliament on the scandalous and outrageous development in the Teoh Beng Hock inquest with Thai pathologist Pornthip Rojanasunand “pressured” not to come to Malaysia to testify

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz should make a ministerial statement in Parliament tomorrow on the scandalous and outrageous development in the Teoh Beng Hock inquest with the renowned Thai pathologist Dr. Pornthip Rojanasunand “pressured” not to come to Malaysia to testify.

In an exclusive interview with Malaysiakini, Pornthip said she would not appear for the Teoh Beng Hock inquest when it resumes on April 20 citing “political pressure” from the Malaysian government.

Pornthip told Malaysiakini that she was “advised” by high-ranking officials from the Thai Justice Ministry - where she is director-general of the ministry's Central Institute of Forensic Science - not to go to Malaysia next week for the inquest.

She said the Justice Ministry had received information from the Thai Foreign Ministry that she may face problems should she go, including the possibility of being stopped from entering the country.

According to her, the Thai Foreign Ministry had received “signals” from the Malaysian government through “informal channels” suggesting that her presence at the inquest later this month would not be welcomed.

She said: “It was conveyed to me by certain senior Thai government officials that there has been political pressure from certain Malaysian government circles to block my presence in court, so much so that it might interfere with my current important forensic mission in southern Thailand.”

Pornthip, who is to testify on her findings of Teoh's second post-mortem next Tuesday, said she was concerned that her involvement in the controversial inquest could impinge on her work in the three troubled southern Thailand provinces where thousands have died in a Muslim separatist insurgency.

Part of her on-going forensic work involved the need to go to Kelantan to investigate a case related to the killings in southern Thailand. According to Pornthip, she had tried to obtain permission to enter Kelantan in January this year but was denied entry to Malaysia on “a 'signal' from the authorities forbidding her from crossing the Thai-Malaysian border”.

With Porthip barred from the Teoh Beng Hock inquest, public confidence in the Barisan Nasional government and MACC would plunge to a new all-time low as the overwhelming majority of Malaysians do not believe that Teoh Beng Hock committed suicide by jumping off the 14th floor of the MACC headquarters in Shah Alam on July 16 last year.

Nazri should also arrange for his ministerial statement on Pornthip barred from testifying at the Teoh Beng Hock inquest to be fully debated in Parliament.

*Lim Kit Siang, DAP Parliamentary Leader & MP for Ipoh Timor